tarheelexpat’s Profile
Recent Comments
What is Your Absolute Favorite "Ethnic" Cuisine?
I love many ethnic cuisines: Japanese, Vietnamese, Persian, Italian. But top honors has to go to French cuisine, not only because I love it, can cook it, and can find good representations in local restaurants, but also because of the influence French cuisine has had on current American ideas about eating. Imagine if Elizabeth David, Julia Child, Alice Waters and others had not loved French food and popularized it in England and the US: would there have been a California cuisine? California wine and cheese industries? Farmers markets? Foodies? Maybe, but I still am grateful to the French for showing the way. I am old enough to remember what food and cooking was like in the 1950s and 1960s in this country. Everything came out of a can or a box; vegetables were cooked to the point of lifelessness; cheese meant Velveeta; bread was Wonderbread; Jello was a food group.
So I say vive la France, merci beaucoup et a votre sante (sorry, don't know how to put in the accent marks) as I hoist a glass of wine, nosh on rillettes or pate with good fresh, crusty baguette slices, followed by a salade nicoise, then a bit of cassoulet, or maybe some pot au feu, or some light-as-clouds fish quenelles under a sublime sauce, followed by, oh let's see - here's the dessert chariot: some great stinky cheeses, tarte tatin, creme brulee, mousse au chocolat, macarons, and thrown in for fun, some exquisite petit fours, little bits of edible art. Yes, I'd say French is my favorite.
Wilber's Barbecue
Yes! I ate at Wilber's BBQ when I was in NC this summer - it was my favorite outside-of-Wilson BBQ place (Wilson is home to Bill's, Parker's and the late, lamented Mitchell's BBQ). Good Q, slaw and pups. I even bought some of their BBQ sauce. An added bonus was the parking lot show: in addition to the smell of the wood-fired BBQ pits and the produce stand selling local tomatoes, squash, snap-beans, etc., the flyboys out of Seymour-Johnson Air Force Base were practicing their landings/takeoffs (I'm guessing), and Wilbur's is right on their flight path. The noise was horrendous and thrilling, and it was quite a sight to see these dark blue, bat-winged planes go screaming overhead: I took several photos of them passing just above the Wilber's Barbeque sign.
See more comments by tarheelexpat »
Recent Posts
tarheelexpat hasn't written a post yet.
Recent Favorites
tarheelexpat hasn't favorited a post yet.
Recent Polls
tarheelexpat hasn't answered any polls yet.
Thanks for a timely and useful column.
I'm trying to economize, too. I cooked a 7 lb pork butt Eastern NC style recently and have gotten 32 meals from it so far (avg. 3.5 oz meat/serving.) I stretch it by serving it with beans, slaw and cornbread, or by putting it in a BBQ sandwich w/ slaw on top.
I roast a whole chicken, eat some of the roasted parts for a couple of meals, then strip most of the meat off and use for chicken salad, chicken quesadillas, etc., then make stock from the bones/skin/giblets and necks & backs that I get cheaply at the store. From the stock I make congee - basically rice in the chicken stock. I freeze 2-serving portions of this, then defrost for breakfast or lunch, and add bits of whatever I have on hand (green onions, cilantro, ginger, preserved cabbage, bits of meat or fish, egg) - cheap and filling and uses up little dabs of leftovers.
Eggs are wonderful - souffles, quiche, frittatta, omelettes - all are cheap but look fancy enough for guests. I stir an egg into congee sometimes to get more protein and fat.